Wednesday, April 19, 2006

This Year's Addiction

IGN has some news on NCAA Football '07, and it seems to be mostly good. Now, this doesn't mean the game will be better, since they aren't gonna release bad news on the game. However, a lot of the changes seem to be significant improvements. You can check them out yourself, but here's a rundown:

Momentum - This is probably the biggest one. You make big plays, you gain momentum, which means that your team starts playing better and making bigger plays. They're walking a tightrope with this one. If its effect is too significant, it could pretty much ruin the game, as giving up a big score and then fumbling the kickoff could take you out of the game. If it's not significant enough, then why bother? But I think it may add some realism to the game, if done well, so I'm gonna adopt the ol' "wait and see" attitude.

Revamped special teams - Raise your hand if you've successfully blocked a punt or kick. That's what I thought. It's all but impossible. They're adding a new camera mode and some new features to improve your chances. However, they're also giving the kicking team the ability to abort the kick and turn the holder or punter into a QB if the shit hits the fan. They're also redoing the onside kicking, giving you more control over it. Again, these should make the game more realistic, since teams do occasionally block kicks and recover onside kicks in real life. Here's hoping it works well.

Better A.I. - Here was my plan on offense when I needed a first down in last year's game: 1. Call a play with a corner route. 2. Scramble toward the corner route. 3. If zone defense, run toward the line to pull the cornerback toward my QB, then throw over his head. 4. If man defense, wait until my receivers run the secondary downfield, then run for the first. 5. Profit.

The programmers are making it so that the defense is more aware of your scrambling, which might take this option away from me. It'll suck when I can no longer run up the score on good teams in Heisman mode, but again, more realistic is a good thing.

Better playbooks - By "better," I mean "bigger and more realistic." There's more formations and more plays for each team, and supposedly they're more accurate, so your team will run offenses like they do in real life. Hopefully this means some options with Teddy G. and things along that line. There's also more trick plays and more options on defense. I'm not convinced they can get this right, because they've had trouble with it in the past, but mark me down as "cautiously optimistic."

Race for the Heisman overhaul - It's now "Campus Legend" mode, and it's also more realistic, supposedly. Your new goal is to be the stereotypical Big Man On Campus, in addition to winning that Heisman doohickey. You have to pick a major, go to practice, take exams, and go to social events. If done well, this will be cool, but seeing as Race for the Heisman and Madden's Superstar mode both kind of sucked last year, I'm not too hopeful. But we'll see.

There's more changes beyond these, but those are the highlights. It sounds like they're putting in some work on this one to make it more than just a facelift. If it works, it could kick ass. If not, then they've butchered my favorite game, and they will pay. And this time. . . It's personal.

I didn't see anything in the article about what platforms the game's gonna be out on, so I did some poking around. Turns out that EA hasn't announced what platforms they're releasing it on. So I bet we get it on PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, and maybe PS3.

I don't think it's a big deal with this year's version. So long as they have to make it work on PS2 and Xbox, we aren't gonna see anything too amazing with it. Once it goes exclusively 360 and PS3, that's when the graphics get so good we can see individual drops of spit fly out of Lee Corso's mouth. Which might be a little too realistic for me, honestly.

About The 614

The 614 (the site, not the area code) is run by Sean Sheehan, an Ohio State alum. In his spare time, Sean enjoys watching Ohio State football, talking about Ohio State football, thinking about Ohio State football, and watching Ohio State basketball and wondering when football season begins.